Autobiography 004: But I was such a wimp and afraid to try to go it alone

Carola describes "going steady" with Gene during the depression, then about her first few jobs working as a commercial artist in Los Angeles. She calls herself a "wimp" for not staying in Los Angeles to work full-time as an artist when given the chance by her manager after father gets transferred to San Diego.

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time in my life "going steady" was the big thing. Gene was 3 years older than me. It was during the depression + jobs were scarce but Gene got part time work at the local sporting goods store. His parents were separated & his mother moved to Banning where she had a job taking care of an older couple. So for a while he stayed at a local boarding house but jobs wouldn't support that so he batched in the back of a warehouse & lived on french fried potatoes cooked on a hot plate.


     So we went steady for about 4 or 5 years.


     After graduation from high school in Huntington Park, a number of us girls went to work at the L.A. Times calling as "Miss Maxwell" wanting to tell them about the Times want ad section. We had a certain little speal to give. My escape came from that when my dad met at his job with an oil co. the artist who did the advertising and car designs for street cars and buses. Miss 


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Annette Honeywell was a commercial artist. Dad asked her if she would take me on as a protegé. She was a bit reluctant as she said she had tried that before & and the student soon thought she knew more than the teacher. But dad finally talked her into giving me a try at $40.00 per month. I went by street car to LA 5 days a week with Miss Honeywell. I learned a lot about doing water colors as that was her specialty when doing ads for Diamond Walnuts, calco avocadoes,etc.


     Eventually times got hard for my dad. I worked at Bullochs in LA for a week doing fashion drawings when one of the artists was on vacation. Then the basement store manager hired me when his artist was on vacation. At this time my father was transferred to San Diego. The basement store advertising manager said he would hire me for a steady job if I would stay in the LA area. But I was such a wimp & afraid to try to go it alone so I went with the folks to San Diego.

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